Post-Holocaust and Anti-Semitism

No. 49 1 October 2006 / 9 Tishrei 5767

Irish Attitudes Toward Israel

An Interview with Rory Miller

Violent anti-Semitism is rare in Ireland. Although the Irish government has a strong
anti-Israel bias, it cannot be faulted as far as protecting the Jewish community is
concerned. Neo-Nazis in Ireland are marginal. Much more of a threat to the Jewish
community is the continuous defaming and demonizing of Israel.

In Irish politics sympathies are very much with the Palestinians. The negative attitude
toward Israel is in line with that of the European Union and its belief that Israel was
in the wrong when the Second Intifada broke out

Ireland is a good case study to prove that no matter how bad political relations are
these do not necessarily impact negatively on bilateral economic relations. It is also a
good case study to demonstrate that however good economic relations are, these do
not improve the political relationship.

"If one were to throw a sack of flour over the Irish parliament, it is unlikely that
anybody pro-Israeli would become white. Among the 166 members of the Dáil - the Irish
parliament's lower house - and the sixty members of the Senate, not one name springs
to mind as a regular defender of Israel. There are either those who do not care or are
pro-Palestinians."

Rory Miller, Irish-born, is a lecturer in Mediterranean studies at King's College,
University of London. In 2005 he published a book titled Ireland and the Palestine
Question, 1948-2004.

He adds that one has to put this observation in perspective. "Only a handful
of parliamentarians would stand up for the United States. These are all government
supporters, mainly from the conservative Progressive Democrats.

"If they do so it is predominantly out of economic interest. I could not name seven or
eight Irish politicians who would publicly say they are supportive of the war in Iraq. At most they would admit that they are not against it, as Ireland has so much involvement with the United States both on economic matters and in the Northern Ireland peace process."

Bilateral Economic Relations

Miller explains: "In Irish politics sympathies are very much with the Palestinians. The
negative attitude toward Israel is in line with that of the European Union and its belief
that Israel was in the wrong when the Second Intifada broke out. Yet Irish politicians
are pragmatic. Many believe that Israel has much to offer their country in the economic
field and thus think Ireland should not burn its bridges with it. Moreover, Irish politicians
would not be willing to break ranks with the EU and adopt a
tougher position on Israel than its European partners.

"The trade volume between Ireland and Israel is $700
million a year. Exports and imports are about equal. Ireland is
a good case study to prove that no matter how bad political
relations are these do not necessarily impact negatively on
bilateral economic relations. It is also a good case study
to demonstrate that however good economic relations are,
these do not improve the political relationship.

"Irish ministers say it is important for Ireland to
develop a relationship with Israel in the hi-tech field. The
same people will stand up in parliament and say that Israel
needs to make concessions, and that the problems in the
Middle East are its fault.

"Israeli governments, for decades, have wanted to
separate the economic from the political sphere, and have
often been successful. Now that the two are separate, this
also means that economic developments have no political
influence. The EU's multibillion-dollar trade surplus with
Israel has not reduced its political animosity."

An Artificial Economy

"Ireland has been very successful in attracting overseas
investment over the past decade, mainly from the United
States. There have been years that it exceeded the U.S.
investment in China. Ireland, however, has been unable
to create its own entrepreneurs. Neither does it invest
significantly in research and development.

"Many Irish do not realize how artificial their national
economy is. One can understand that, for instance, from its
trade with Israel. Israel mainly imports and exports from
subsidiaries of U.S. multinationals that happen to be located in
Ireland. Very little derives from indigenous Irish companies.

"American multinationals in pharmaceuticals and
other technological areas have invested heavily in Ireland.
They employ many Irish workers. If these companies were
to expand further in cheaper countries abroad, Irish-Israeli
trade would shrink significantly."

Research and Development

"It is common among Irish politicians, businesspeople,
and scientists to say that their country has to learn from
Israel. They view the latter as a country with a small
population and few natural resources, facing economic
challenges similar to those of Ireland. So they claim that
their country should follow Israel as far as investment in
education and technology is concerned.

"Irish ministers say openly that Israel is a model economy
and that from their perspective it offers vast opportunities.
From 1995 onward there has been a significant development
of R&D cooperation between Ireland and Israel. When Israeli
chief scientists or, for instance, biotechnology experts visit
Ireland, they are treated professionally and warmly welcomed
at the highest level. That continued after the breakdown of
the Oslo agreements.

"In these conversations one could not detect any
political animosity among senior economic advisers, civil
servants, or politicians. I would imagine if one asked these
people, once the Israelis had left, who was in the right in the
Middle East, most would be sympathetic to the Palestinian
cause, but the political issue is just not a consideration in
bilateral economic ties."

Politics

Concerning Irish politics, Miller remarks: "The election
of Hamas has had some influence. A small example will
illustrate this. The Irish Times is Ireland's newspaper of
record. It does not have the largest circulation but it is the
one all politicians and the elites read. Its leanings are close
to those of The Guardian in the United Kingdom, although
unlike The Guardian it does at least try to offer the Israeli side
on some occasions. Moreover, over the years, in the foreign
news section, while some of the reporters it uses are deeply
critical of Israel to the point of parody, it can lay claim to
having published a number of Israelis who are by no means
anti-Israeli, including David Horovitz, current editor of the
Jerusalem Post.

"When Hamas was elected, for the first time ever, the
Irish Times started accepting articles that were very critical
of this organization. They were not motivated by Hamas's
radical anti-Israeli attitude but by its antisecular one. To my
amazement the paper even published an article of mine on
Hamas. Although I have published there often, they have
always been more likely to accept pieces from me on the
wider Middle East or with an EU angle than on Israel, even
though I am a moderate."

There Miller wrote that:

...in February 1980, Ireland became
the first EEC member to call publicly for the
inclusion of the PLO in the political process at
a time when Arafat's group not only refused
to recognize Israel's right to exist - that would
come grudgingly in 1988 - but was engaged in a
relentless campaign of terror against Israeli and
Jewish targets across the globe.

He added:

More astonishing, successive Irish
governments have been prepared to overlook
Palestinian terrorism that directly challenged
Irish interests. From 1969, when the matter was
first raised in the Dáil, it has been widely assumed
that the PLO was co-operating with and even
training, various IRA factions. During the 1980s
the PLO was responsible for numerous attacks on
Irish troops serving in Lebanon with the UN.1

A Short-Lived Attitude

Miller observes: "The paper's attitude lasted for perhaps
a month. Thereafter it again used articles very negative of
Israel. The Irish Times is always an excellent barometer
for the mood of the elites, the politicians, the media, and
many other prominent people. To be fair, though I often
disagree with the Irish Times's position on the conflict, and
I don't believe they give even nearly sufficient, nuanced
coverage of the Israeli position, it is no worse than most
liberal, elite newspapers across Europe in that regard. And,
to the bewilderment of many of its leftist readers, it does
publish conservative columnists like Mark Steyn and Charles
Krauthammer from abroad.

"The current tone is that the Irish Times is much
more willing to accept that Israel did not have a partner in
Yasser Arafat. When he was alive, they never comprehended
this. Their new version is that Hamas is not corrupt and is
working for the people. The party is transparent and has been
democratically elected. What the paper suggests is that in
Arafat, Israel did not have an honest partner, but now it does.
Many opposition members adopt this position.

"The Irish government does not say the same. Its
position can best be summarized as following whatever the
EU does. That means that if tomorrow the EU fully embraces
Hamas they will do so as well. The EU always leads them.
Moral objections are absent in Ireland, at least when it comes
to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict."

Right-of-Center Government

"The Irish parliamentary system is based on proportional
representation. Governments are thus always coalition
ones. Since 1997 the major nationalist party, Fianna Fail,
has headed the government. It holds 78 of the 166 seats in
the Dáil. Their coalition partners, the Progressive Democrats,
have eight. Both are in favor of free trade. Having a capitalist
orientation, they are not anti-American and did not join the
EU American-bashers over Iraq.

"Although Ireland is a neutral country, many American
troops pass through it every year on their way to Iraq and
Afghanistan. George Bush is very unpopular in Ireland, like
elsewhere in Europe. However, when he was reelected, Prime
Minister Bertie Ahern said something like: 'To be honest, in
terms of our economic interests, I'd much rather have George
Bush in the White House than John Kerry.'

"Ahern explained that the Democratic presidential
candidate was opposed to America continuing to outsource.
As Ireland makes so much money from this, it was much
better that George Bush remained president. For the prime
minister it was not a matter of ideology or politics, only of
economics."

Rare Government Support for Israel

"Only rarely does the Irish government come out in
Israel's favor. In 1999, Ahern visited Israel and met Netanyahu.
At the press conference he said Netanyahu had told him that
with the Palestinians trying to murder Israelis, Israel should not
give up land. Ahern said this position made sense to him.

"On other occasions the same Irish government has
irrationally backed Arafat to the hilt. The Irish see themselves
as anti-colonial victims of partition and ultimately victors over
the British. Although this happened many decades ago, their
philosophy is still the same. In Mahmoud Abbas, Arafat, and
Hamas, they see those who struggle against a colonial ruler. The
Irish cannot shake off the belief that Israel is a colonial oppressor
while they have much in common with the Palestinians. Analytically speaking, it is easy to show that they have much
more in common with Israel than with the Palestinians.

"There are major parallels between their own history
of large-scale migration and suffering in response to the
Famine and the Penal Laws and that of the Jews under the
Russian Czars and later under the Nazis.

Moreover, in 1936 the spiritual leader of the Irish
Republic's Jewish community, the renowned Rabbi Isaac
Herzog, left Dublin to take up the post of Chief Rabbi of
Palestine, later becoming Israel's first Chief Rabbi."

Learning the Same Lessons?

"The Jewish underground fighting the British during the
pre-1948 era was modeled on the old IRA - Yitzhak Shamir's
nom de guerre was, after all, 'Michael,' after Michael Collins.
In the decades after Israel's birth Irish Jews, like Rabbi
Herzog's sons Chaim (a future president of Israel) and Yaacov
(a great scholar and diplomat), as well as others like Max
Nurock of the Israeli Foreign Ministry and Geoffrey Wigoder
(editor of the Encyclopedia Judaica) contributed greatly to
Israeli political, diplomatic, and intellectual life.

"As such, Israel always hoped that Ireland would draw
on what David Vital, the distinguished Israeli historian,
has termed 'an Irishman's intuitive understanding of the
Jewish-Israeli predicament'2 and support it in its struggle
for survival and security. As Zvi Gabay, Israel's first resident
ambassador in Dublin, put it, 'as a small democracy, Israel is
guided by the same school of thought that built Ireland. The
founding fathers of Ireland and Israel - although they came
from different backgrounds - learned the same lessons from
the same eternal book, the Bible.'3

"At times this did occur. Following the Six Day War of
1967, Ireland's then foreign minister Frank Aiken, who was
highly regarded internationally, worked hard to get the UN
to take into account Israeli concerns in its resolutions on
the conflict. This led Abba Eban to call on other UN member
states to follow the example of his 'friend' Aiken. But overall,
the Irish have refused to translate the natural kinship that
existed between the Irish and the Jews into political support
for the Jewish state.

"The main opposition party is Fine Gael, a center party
that has always been the main challenger of Fianna Fail.
It holds thirty-two seats. The other opposition parties are
Labour with twenty-one seats, the Green Party with six, and
Sinn Fein with five. There are also fourteen Independents. All
these left-wing parties are overwhelmingly pro-Palestinian.
Sinn Fein, led by Gerry Adams, is a Marxist party. Its military
wing, the IRA, trained with the PLO and Muammar Qaddafi
in Libya as well as in other terrorist states.

"The Republican movement in Northern Ireland has in
its ranks many ex-IRA members and others who fought the
British. They, too, in their newspapers and publicity have
expressed much sympathy for the Palestinian struggle.
Since entering politics in the Republic of Ireland, Sinn Fein
politicians have been among the most outspoken critics of
Israel, with Aengus Ó Snodaigh, the party's International
Affairs and Human Rights spokesperson in the Irish
parliament, recently describing Israel as 'one of the most
abhorrent and despicable regimes on the planet.'"

No Jewish Parliamentarians

"In the past, there were three Jewish members of
parliament who all stood up for Israel, one in each of the
three main parties. Ben Briscoe belonged to Fianna Fail,
Alan Shatter to Fine Gael, and Mervyn Taylor to Labor. The
latter was the first Irish Jew to become a cabinet member
when he was appointed labor minister in 1993. He then
served as minister for equality and law reform during the
two governments of 1993-1994 and 1994-1997.

"In debates on the Middle East when many members
of parliament bashed Israel, these three would support it.
Two have retired and one lost his seat. So there is nobody
who says to the other members of parliament: 'You can't
discuss the situation in Israel without looking at the suicide
bombings.' One formerly pro-Israeli member of the Senate,
David Norris, by now has become anti-Israeli, using terms
such as the 'apartheid wall' and vehemently condemning the
Israeli response to Hizballah in Lebanon in July 2006."

As an aside, Miller remarks that in Ireland there is
better access to parliamentary debates than in any other
European country. Every parliamentary session since 1922
is fully available on the web. Miller says this also enables
demonstrating in detail how major the distortions are in
the Middle East debates. "Everybody can read how the
Dail discussed the Israeli-Palestinian conflict without even
mentioning suicide bombing."

An Example of Bias

"One interesting case occurred in 1996 when Binyamin
Netanyahu was elected prime minister. At that time Europe
started to panic because they were afraid that the Oslo
process, in which they had invested so much time and
effort, would fail. Thereafter the ratification of the Israel-
EU trade treaty came up, which also had to be ratified by
the parliaments of all member states.

"At the same time the ratification of the treaties with
Morocco, Syria, and Tunisia also came up. Ninety-nine percent
of the debate was taken up with Israeli human rights violations
against the Palestinians. Alan Shatter then said that he had
listened to the debate, 'Not just with astonishment but with
sadness.' He noted that the ongoing Palestinian terrorist
attacks on Israel had hardly been mentioned."4

Miller adds another perspective: "Compared to those of
other countries, the Irish government's official statements
about Israel are never extremely abusive. There are no
statements like those heard on occasion from Jacques
Chirac or Swedish foreign ministers. The Irish will say the
usual platitudes that military responses are not the answer
to the problem, or that Israel must make concessions so that
there will be peace with the Palestinians.

"I have no doubt that if Ireland were faced with the
same type of terrorism Israel confronts it would act much
more violently to defend itself. On a political level Irish
hypocrisy is at par with the rest of Europe. Yet there are
no politicians who make a career out of bashing Israel like
some in Sweden."

UNIFIL, a Source of Conflict

"A major issue of conflict between Israel and Ireland
was the two countries' interaction while Irish soldiers were
serving in UNIFIL in southern Lebanon. From 1978 to 2000,
Ireland's largest-ever military involvement outside its borders
was in Lebanon.

"One has to keep in mind that Ireland is a neutral
country with a small army. Over forty thousand Irish troops
served in Lebanon, which represented a massive commitment.
Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, the Irish regularly called
in the Israelis to threaten them and discipline them over the
treatment of Irish UNIFIL troops. Ireland's foreign minister
for much of the 1980s, Brian Lenihan, said that most of
his sympathy for Israel disappeared when he saw how they
treated the Irish soldiers in southern Lebanon, and this was
echoed among the various political parties.

"There was a lot of animosity, as would happen on
any tense border. There are two sides to this story. The Irish
troops were no less guilty of turning a blind eye to Arab
violence than any other UN troops. On the other hand, I have
spoken with a number of IDF liaison officers who worked
with UNIFIL and they all praise the professionalism of their
Irish counterparts."

The NGOs

"In civil society there is a groundswell of nonofficial
opinion that sympathizes with the idea of a boycott of Israel.
The Irish branch of the International Solidarity Movement,
an anti-Israeli organization, is among the most active in the
world. In 2004 they handed a petition to the foreign minister
with twelve thousand Irish signatures, 275 of elected officials
across Europe and fifty of elected officials or public figures
in Ireland calling for an economic boycott.

"As Ireland has a population of three and a half million,
this is far from insignificant. At that time the leader of the
Irish Senate, Mary O'Rourke, said she would support an
economic boycott of Israel unless the country improved its
treatment of the Palestinians.

"There are other anti-Israeli NGOs such as Christian Aid
and the Ireland-Palestine Solidarity Campaign. These have
relatively more support among the population than in other
European countries. One might define it as an unthinking,
visceral sort of attachment to Palestinian suffering.

"Many people neither understand the facts nor want
to know them. Their gut feeling is that an economic boycott
is the answer to the Palestinian suffering. Academia as an
institution is overwhelmingly pro-Palestinian. But while
some organized parts of British academia want an official
boycott of Israel, there has been no similar move in Ireland.
Only a few Irish professors have signed boycott appeals.

"The local Muslim community is small approaching
twenty thousand. As Ireland is on the geographical margins
of Europe, developments such as radicalization are much
slower. The local Muslims are far less extreme than many in
Britain, France, or Germany.

"When the Mohammed cartoons appeared in Denmark, a
few hundred Muslims marched through the streets of Dublin.
Their placards were relatively mild by Muslim standards,
carrying texts such as: 'You must respect the Prophet.' I
have no doubt that in a few years they will carry placards
saying, like elsewhere, that people should be killed, or that
Europe is dead.

"Since much of Irish Muslims' funding comes from
Saudi Arabia, Wahhabi extremism must be creeping in. The
Saudis have subsidized a major mosque and community center
in Dublin. The idea is that once the facility is there, more people
will use it. Yet while the number of Muslims is increasing fast,
as a community they are still finding their feet.

"The Irish government and many others are worried
that the country may become a stepping stone for Muslim
radicals to mainland Europe. The Irish hope there will not
be any major attempts to destabilize Ireland because it is
not an important country. Yet it may become a transit base
for radicals and terrorists. Once one is in Ireland, one can
travel elsewhere in the EU freely.

"The Irish discussion of radical Muslims focuses on
money laundering as well as forging documents for use by
extremists across Europe. Although until recently the Irish
security services were preoccupied with events in Northern
Ireland, there has been an attempt to refocus resources to
this new threat. As yet, though, the capability needed to deal
with the radical Muslim threat is underdeveloped.

"One major fault of much of the Irish population is a
sincere belief that their experience of colonial rule and their
policy of neutrality makes them morally superior to other
countries. Racism is on the rise and is focused on Muslims as
well as Indians and the rapidly growing Chinese population.
I was recently listening to a radio program on local racism.
An Indian rang up and said he had been in Ireland five years,
and there had not been a single day at work where he had
not been abused for the color of his skin."

The Jews

"The Jewish community in Ireland numbers around a
thousand. There are also about six hundred Israelis. Many
are active in the community; a few, however, are leaders in
anti-Israeli activities.

"The Jewish community has a policy of not sticking its
neck out. Rarely will it come out on behalf of Israel. Individual
members of the community do write to the newspapers or
express unhappiness with the situation whereby Israel gets bad
press and an unfair hearing in parliament.

"Although, for a large part of the last few decades, the
Jews of Ireland have been well represented in parliament,
the Jews were always insignificant in Ireland. They were not
involved in the politics of the Northern Ireland crisis between
Catholics and Protestants, or 'the Troubles' as it came to be
known. Over the last fifty years there have been some people
in the public eye who were anti-Semites. However, they had
no effect on Irish Jewish life."

Judaism, a State Religion

"When Ireland became a republic upon leaving the
British Commonwealth in 1949, it was written in the Irish
constitution that Judaism was a state religion. It thus had
the same rights as Catholicism and Protestantism. The
constitution says that whenever there is a state function, for
instance for a foreign president, the order of presentations
is: the Irish president, the head of the Catholic church, the
head of the Protestant church and then the Chief Rabbi.

The Jewish community then numbered four to five
thousand. The former Chief Rabbi Herzog was a very good
friend of the legendary Irish leader Eamon de Valera and
other leading Irish officials. They respected Judaism very
much. The Muslims now claim that they are much larger in
number than the Jews, and they too want to become a state
religion. One cannot much argue with that, except that many
do not integrate and they will use this status for their own
interests. It is almost inevitable that Islam will eventually
replace Judaism as the country's third religion.

"For over twenty years there were three Jewish
members of parliament and only one Protestant one.
When one asked how this was possible, the usual answer
was that the Catholics, who accounted for 98 percent of
the population, had nothing against the Jews. They were,
however, opposed to the Protestants who had ruled the
country in the past.

"Yet the official Catholic church was a major source
of anti-Semitism until deep into the twentieth century. My
mother has a very good Catholic friend who used to go to
church on Sunday. In sermons, until the 1980s, some priests
would talk about how the Jews killed Jesus and in later
centuries stole money. My mother's friend would challenge
them. Yet thousands of people heard this every Sunday.
Nowadays the Irish Catholic church has lost much of its
influence. Few people go to church and hardly anybody joins
the priesthood."

Violent Anti-Semitism Is Rare

Miller says violent anti-Semitism is rare in Ireland.

"In 2005 the main synagogue in Dublin was daubed with
swastikas. When that happened the police assigned patrols
and plainclothes policemen to investigate the matter. It
turned out the graffiti were the work of a loner who believed
that Jews caused all the problems of the world.

"Although the Irish government has a strong political
anti-Israeli bias, it cannot be faulted as far as protecting
the Jewish community is concerned. The current justice
minister, Michael McDowell, is one of the most outspoken
enemies of the IRA. He has helped stamp out terrorism in
Northern Ireland as much as he could. When the Jewish
community complained about the graffiti, he received their
representatives for an hour. McDowell made it clear that he
will not tolerate any anti-Semitism.

"Like everywhere else, there are also neo-Nazis in
Ireland, but they are marginal. Much more of a threat to
the Jewish community is the continuous defaming and
demonizing of Israel. People start to think the Israelis are
like Nazis while the Jews in Ireland support them. In this way
you create an environment where the Jews become guilty
by default. If one does not oppose such a Nazi regime, one
must be a fascist as well.

"However, the real problems for the Jews in Ireland come
far more from the Left than from the extreme Right. Probably,
in the coming years, the Palestinian issue will not be used as
a foreign policy issue but rather to push the Muslim agenda
in Ireland. That cannot be good for the Jews, and as the Jews
are a very small group, people often forget about them."

Lebanon Crisis, 2006

"Since Israel responded to Hizballah's kidnapping of two
of its soldiers and bombing of its northern communities, the
reaction of Irish politicians of all parties, the Irish Times, and
pro-Palestinian NGOs in Ireland has largely been predictable.
Like most of its EU partners, the Irish government has called
for an immediate cease-fire, condemned Israel's allegedly
disproportionate military response, and also appealed to
Hizballah to return the kidnapped soldiers and end the
shelling of Israeli territory.

"But this understates the wide-ranging anger against
Israel across all sectors of society since it began its military
operation in Lebanon. Most of the media, and not simply
the Irish Times, has been highly critical of the level of force
Israel has employed and the losses among Lebanese civilians.
Anti-Israeli groups have even called for expelling the Israeli
ambassador and closing the Israeli embassy, where there
have been several protests and a 'die-in' staged by anti-
Israeli activists.

"The Irish preoccupation with Israel's disproportionate
use of force in Lebanon has triggered one of the country's
main spikes in anti-Israeli sentiment over the years. As far
back as the early 1970s the Irish media condemned Israeli
raids against the PLO in Lebanon as disproportionate, and this
continued following the 1982 invasion and in 1996 during
Operation Grapes of Wrath, when the mistaken Israeli attack
on a UN post in Qana killed over a hundred civilians. That
sparked an unprecedented outcry among the Irish media,
political elite, and public and damaged bilateral relations for
months, and current events are following a similar path."

Interviewed by Manfred Gerstenfeld

* * *

This text is part of a major project of interviews with prominent Dutch people on Dutch attitudes toward Jews and Israel. This project was funded by The Israel Maror Foundation.

Dr. Rory Miller was born in Dublin in 1971. He has a BA in history
from Trinity College, Dublin, an MA in war studies, and a PhD in
Mediterranean studies from King's College, University of London.
He is a senior lecturer in the Mediterranean Studies program there,
and teaches on U.S. and EU involvement in the Middle East and the
wider Mediterranean. He has published two books, Divided against
Zion: Anti-Zionist Opposition to a Jewish State in Palestine, 1945-48
(London: Frank Cass, 2000) and Ireland and the Palestine Question,
1948-2004 (Dublin: Irish Academic Press, 2005). He is also the
associate editor of Israel Affairs.